Return of the Kitchen Heat Chart

It's been ages. Many of these records were played at the Terrence Parker show.

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When Detroit Came to the Port City

I know that it’s coming up on two (2!) weeks since the Terrence Parker show, but it was such an inspirational experience that both Fred “Nexus6ix” and I have been busy beavers. We’ve got a bunch of irons in the fire, so to speak, but mainly it’s just been an ever-inflating creative bubble that I’m praying doesn’t pop anytime soon.


As I’m sure you’ve gathered, the show was incredible. I have never, ever, in my life seen a DJ cut-up house records the way Terrence did in the wee hours of September 20th. Most of the time I find the work of “turntablists” (Read: Scratch DJs) to be entirely un-musical. Don’t get me wrong; I admire their dexterity and sense of timing immensely, but I think there are very few who make their art truly danceable. That’s not to say they can’t be make their sets danceable, but when they do their styles become closer to that of a traditional club DJ than a scratch DJ. Terrence went the other way: he came at it from the club mixing side and applied the techniques of the turntablist. He knew those records inside and out, backwards and forwards, upside-down. He’d grab a record from his bag, put it on the platter, cue it up without using his tele-head-phone, and drop it into the mix like it was nothing. He pick out a record, cue it, and start cutting it up for awhile, put it back in his bag and mix in something else. It was less like watching a DJ and more like watching a wizard work magic or watching a saint work miracles.


To top it all off, he’s a hellova nice guy. A lot of DJs, even local guys, are at least a bit of a diva and will turn their noses up at you if you’re not “their people”. Terrence was absolutely the antithesis of the diva DJ. He seemed pleased to chat and we talked about records for at least an hour before he went on. It was a real pleasure to meet him and with any luck, I’ll be seeing him again soon.


The video below will give you a taste. The sound is terrible, but if you can get past that, there’s nothing but genius there.



The last little piece of the story happened when we had to shut it all down at 2:15am. We were packing up the gear and Terrence was talking with us and other patrons while we worked. Out of nowhere the obviously very drunk guy comes up to the both and says to Terrence, “Budweiser?”

Terrence says, “Na, man, thanks. I don’t drink.”

Drunk Dude responds, “No, for me,” and drops a couple of bucks on the booth counter.

Terrence just stares at him, stunned. “Dude, this is the DJ both. The bar is over there,” he says with a bemused chuckle.

The guy stares back at Terrence, confused. Then he responds, “Come oooon! Just gimme a beer!”

At this point Fred steps in and says, “Look, pal, do you see any liquor here?” and gestures to the wall behind the booth. “The bar is over there!”

Buddy mumbles a “Fuck you” and stumbles away.

Terrence looks back and forth between me, Fred and Tommy, eyes wide. Finally with a wry smile he says, “I spend a lot of time in clubs, but that’s a new one for me, fellas.”

It was certainly an amusing cap to a unique show.